Warnings: Silliness and slightly Jucky Things of the Alien and Biological Variety.

Pairings: Hints of Star Summers x Nick Carter/Teknoman Blade

Soundtrack: 'Let's call the whole thing off', by whomever you prefer.

Disclaimer: Teknoman/Tekkaman Blade is not mine. I'm just borrowing the characters and setting for a while. Will return in canon state.

Summary: If you can't beat them, cheat them. A very silly way to beat Darkon; with a cold virus.

Author's Note: The second attempt to defeat Darkon with the use of the most lame and absurd techniques. Enjoy!

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Darkon and the Common Cold

In the distant future, mankind has reached the stars... Wait, wrong anime. Oh, who cares, it fits this one just the same. Now, where was I?

Ahem.

In the distant future, mankind has reached the stars. Unfortunately for mankind, though, the stars reached them too. And they came with ugly, big-ass, ugly, murderous, ugly, green, ugly, man-eating, ugly, giant, ugly monsters bent on taking over Earth, run for your lives!!!

As usual.

But even during alien invasions, mankind needs to eat, so at the time of writing, the Space Knights - protectors of Earth - are enjoying their meal. Until, suddenly -

"Atsjoe!"

In a flash of (admittedly justified) paranoia, the entire human contents of the cafeteria had their weapons drawn and aimed at the alien element in their midst. Blade sweatdropped and slouched in his seat, trying to become invisible.

"Oh, shove it, Ringo!" Star said, fitting the act to the word by shoving Ringo out of the way. "Can't you see Blade is ill? He needs medical help."

"I'm fine, Star." Blade protested. Then he sneezed.

Star looked at him with barely veiled smugness. "I'm sure you are, Blade. Come on now, good boy."

And she dragged him off to the medical ward.

Just as a thermometer was shoved up Blade's... no, make that down his throat, for propriety's sake, the alarm went off. "Thank God." Blade muttered, and promptly spat the thermometer out. He swatted away the IV Tina wanted to attach to his arm and jumped up from the operating table. "Sorry guys, but I have to go sae the world for a minute."

"Oh no you don't!" Star yelled, using the Universal Powers granted to all Anime Women who have to deal with Stubborn and Thick-Headed Love Interests, to momentarily loom over the taller man and create a fiery decor. Blade cowered despite himself. "You are not going anywhere until we've figured out what's wrong with you and found a cure, do you hear?"

"It's just a common cold!"

"Oh, and I assume your berserker fits are 'just results of an every-day flu'? Who knows what a simple virus might do to you and your tekno-hardware - not to mention the software!"

Seeing no other way to end the argument - let alone win it - Blade grabbed Star around the waist, pulled her toward him, and kissed her soundly on the mouth. When Blade pulled back, Star's mind was reeling enough to allow him to make his leave.

"Bye guys!" he yelled over his shoulder as he all but skipped off. "I'll be back in time for dinner!"

When he was out of hearing range, he paused for a moment to have a coughing fit, before shaking away the stars dancing before his eyes and hurrying off again. By the time the pink clouds and bouncy hearts disappeared from Star's vision, Blade was already soaring into the sky in full tekno-armour.

"What took you so long, Saber?" he greeted his evil twin.

"Miss me that much? Here, let me make it up to you!"

Saber charged, and the battle started. Apart from the occasional sniffle and sneeze, it was a fairly ordinary Teknomen battle. It even had witty battle-quotes from Blade, pompous comments from Saber, and two near-death experiences when Blade called Pegas to a halt in mid-air, tilted his head up, and sneezed so hard he was propelled backwards, knocking into Saber and sending them both tumbling to the ground.

"What the Hell?" Saber grumbled as he sat up, rubbing a sore spot in his head armour. "What's wrong with you today, Blade?"

But his brother was too busy moaning and clutching his own head to answer. Every now and then, he coughed. Saber crawled over to him and poked him.

"Blade? Earth-Born-Alien-Monster to Blade, wake up please."

"No more fighting today, brother. Please." Blade rasped, thinking he should have listened to Star after all. "I don't feel too good. That means you have to let me go now, right? Victory through common cold would be dishonourable. Right?"

Blade looked up at Saber with what would have been a pleading expression, had tekno-armour had the ability to express anything other than metalicyness.

Saber scratched his head uncertainly. "Yes, well... under normal circumstances..." He sighed. "Look Nick, it really pisses me off too, but our dearest older brother forbade me to let you go again. And he's tied to the mother ship, so he's in charge."

"But Cain!" Blade whined.

Saber hated the sound of that whine. Always had. It had used to involve him being made to do something by their father he hated to do, or being blackmailed into doing something else by Shara, under threat of having to suffer her wails combined with Nick's whines.

"Okay, I'll make you a deal." Saber said quickly, shuddering at the memories. "If you stop whining, I'll stop fighting and just kidnap you instead. So if you just refrain from struggling, you'll get your way, and because I didn't let you go, Darkon the High and Mighty will get his way too. How about it?"

Though it was undiscernible, Blade looked doubtful. Then he had a violent coughing fit and nodded weakly. Saber heaved a sigh of relief. He got up and helped Blade to his feet - by pulling him up by his head spikes - and they started of towards Saber's flying scorpion.

"Oh, haha Cain, that's so mature."

"Shut up. You're my hostage now, so act like one."

"I'm an ill hostage, so why don't you be a responsible kidnapper and take good care of me, huh?"

'Whatever, bro. Hey, who won this round, anyway?"

"Duh, I did. I threw you to the ground, remember?"

"You fell. We both hit the ground."

"That's your excuse. I don't need one."

Saber grumbled just as they reached his flying method of transportation. Blade looked at it and stopped dead in his tracks.

"We're using that thing to get to the moon?"

"I'm not letting you get onto Pegas, if that's what you mean." Saber huffed. "Honour is one thing, stupidity another."

"Go figure." Blade mumbled sarcastically. Aloud, he said, using his misery to make his whine extra potent: "I'm not too keen on flying Pegas either, at the moment. I really don't feel so good..."

"I wish I knew. It wasn't more than a slight cold up until this morning. It didn't get really bad until I transformed. You mind if I turn back human?"

At the shaking of Saber's head, Blade undid the transformation and promptly sneezed.

"Could we take a shuttle or a space ship to the moon?" he said miserably, rubbing at the back of his neck. It was beginning to feel sore.

"What do you think I am, an astronaut?"

"Well, yeah!"

Saber chuckled. "Alright, on one condition. If I can get Conrad to spare you until you've recovered, will you fight me again?"

"Sure... if it's really that important to you." Blade muttered, not for the first time worried about his twin's unhealthy obsession with their supposed 'cosmically decided' rivalry. Then he sighed morosely. "Besides, I do have a planet to save..."

They found an available shuttle surprisingly easily... or not, considering Saber's transformed appearance. Not to mention Blade's bare behind, which distracted many of the possible obstacles quite effectively. Luckily for said naked man, here was a space suit in his size for him to put on in the shuttle they 'commandeered'. Saber struggled with the control panel for a while before Blade suggested he'd take his gloves off. After another couple of minutes of stubborn but useless struggle with the buttons and switches, plus two minor crashes and one near self-destruction, Saber finally gave in and undid his transformation.

"You happy now?" he tetchily asked his brother, who sniggered between coughs. They took off, leaving Earth behind. As soon as they'd exited Earth's atmosphere, Blade unbuckled his seatbelt and went to look for food. He may not be able to taste it, but that didn't take away from his post-transformation cravings.

"You know, this is just like old times." Saber commented as Blade plopped down next to him again, a box of cookies in one hand and a whole salami in the other. He stole a cookie to demonstrate.

"Really?" Blade said hopefully.

"Yeah, only now, I get to kill you for real, instead of only making empty threats!" Saber beamed.

Blade sweatdropped.

They flew in silence for a while - at least, in as much silence as was possible between two annoying brothers confined to close shared quarters for extended amounts of time. Then Saber sneezed.

"Damnit Nick, you contaminated me!"

"Hey, you're the one who decided to kidnap me."

"And you are still a hostage, and I can do whatever I want with you, so shut up." Saber growled, wiping his nose.

Blade just kept rubbing his painful neck, hoping the bulge he thought he felt was just his imagination. Both brothers were relieved when they finally arrived at Darkon's base on the dark side of the moon. Much to Blade's distress, though, a number of spidercrabs immediately approached, and seemed to act as doorman and bellboys, while another one dragged their shuttle off when they'd safely entered the Venomoid space station.

"What the..." Blade muttered, staring at the alien monsters with wide eyes. If he hadn't known any better, he would have sworn that a few of them were standing neatly in line and had just bowed to him.

"If you think that's impressive, you should see what Sword can make them do at dinner." Saber said. "Even when she managed to tame Conrad, I never expected Catherine to be this good at training animals. Oh, speaking of the she-devil. Hi Sword! Look at what I found floundering around on Earth." He excitedly tugged at Blade's sleeve.

Sword approached, her eyes narrowed in anger and crystal in hand. "Saber, what is the meaning of this? You were supposed to kill him -"

"I was supposed to not let him escape anymore. So that's all I did."

Sword looked flustered. "Still, honestly Saber! Bringing him here -" She shifted her gaze from Saber to Blade, and fell silent fo a moment while her sharp eyes raked him. Then: "Blade, you're ill! Good grief, you haven't changed a bit, have you? Going out to battle while you should be in bed, resting. I would have thought that Space Knight girlfriend of yours would at least have the common sense to -"

With one hand on his forehead and another rummaging her pockets in search of a handkerchief, she suddenly stopped, her Venomoid brainwashing belatedly catching up with her maternal instincts. "I - I mean -" she stammered, turning red in the face.

"Darkon it is, then?" Saber said.

Blade sighed. "Nice to see you again too, Catherine." He should have known it was too good to be true. Ah well, the cold that had struck him so suddenly probably wouldn't last very long. He'd be ready to fight again in no time. Whoopie.

He smiled, his gloom lifting somewhat as Sword covertly stuck a handkerchief in his pocket when they headed toward Darkon's throne room.

Darkon was already standing when they entered, surrounded by spidercrabs wearing tuxedoes and white gloves. To keep his mind away from that brainwreckingly bizarre sight, Blade forcefully started wondering whether Darkon was still capable of actually sitting down in his teknoform, when he was tied to the spaceship like that. He opened his mouth to voice that question out loud when suddenly he sneezed, and felt a sharp pain in his neck. Though at first it seemed to be merely a flash, the feeling did not die away, but intensified instead, growing so unbearable he fell to his knees, blinded by the pain. Through the ringing in his ears he heard Saber and Sword cry out - and then, with one last stab of pain in his neck, everything went black.

---

When he woke up, he was lying... in a pod?! With a disgusted yelp he jumped up, and promptly fell back down again as a wave of dizziness washed over him.

"Saber!" someone nearby shrieked. "Oh God, Saber!"

Blade looked up. Sword and Lance were standing over Saber, who had fallen to his knees in much the same way he imagined he must have done before blacking out. A nasty bulge was visible on his brother's neck, and as Blade watched, it burst open to reveal a tiny Venomoid, which jumped off of Saber, ran a few circles around him, and dropped dead on the spot.

A ghastly pale Saber looked at the critter that had come out of his body, and fainted.

"How - What -" Lance stammered, while Sword looked like she wanted to follow Saber's example. She looked over at Blade with dread evident in her eyes.

"It's the cold!" she exclaimed, backing away from all the males in the room. "Blade had a cold and it drove his parasite away. And then Saber was contaminated, and the same happened to him! That's why the spidercrabs are dying! The disease is spreading through the mothership."

"No, you idiot, wait -" Sword yelled after him, but to no avail. She turned to Blade and snapped: "You had better be gone before I come back, and your good for nothing twin as well. If this cold virus gets to Darkon, I will personally strangle the both of you with your spinal cords." With that, she went after Lance.

Blade stared after her in a daze. Was that a sneeze he heard right before she disappeared behind that corner?

---

"No way." Tina said.

"That's... that's..." Ringo stuttered.

"Hilarious!" Maggie giggled. "Why didn't we think of that before?"

"It's fortunate." Star blew her nose in the handkerchief Blade had given to her upon his return. "Blade contaminated me as well, so I wouldn't have been able to fight if they were to attack."

"Incredible!" Jamison whispered in awe. He looked at Blade across the table they were all sitting around. "So this cold virus caused the mind-controlling parasite that keeps teknomen under Venomoid control, to abandon its host?"

"That's what Saber and Sword said." Blade confirmed. "And I have to admit it sounds reasonable. If their biotechnology can harm us, then it seems only logical to assume that our bacterial and viral biology can harm them."

"Man, I should have defected a long time ago." Saber said, looking around. "The accommodation is much better. And the beautiful women here are actually available." he added with a wink to Star.